Ben Affleck wins Directors Guild Award for 'Argo'

Ben Affleck claimed the Directors Guild of America Award for Argo on Saturday in Hollywood’s latest thumb-in-the-eye to the small group of filmmakers in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who failed to nominate him for an Oscar.

“I worked really, really hard to become the best director I could be, by putting in as [many] hours as I can, and banging my head against a wall, berating myself, lying to myself about whether it’s going to work,” Affleck told the crowd, never mentioning the snub. “Basically, I got to a point where I was nominated for this award. And I don’t think this makes me a real director – but I think it means I’m on my way.”

It’s the third time in its 65-year history that the DGA Award has gone to a filmmaker who was not also up for Best Director at the Academy Awrds. It happened to Ron Howard, who claimed the DGA honor in 1995 for Apollo 13, and Steven Spielberg, who won in 1986 for The Color Purple.

Of course, Spielberg’s The Color Purple ended up losing the Best Picture award to Out of Africa, and Howard’s Apollo 13 lost it to Braveheart.

That doesn’t seem likely to happen here. Though there’s no way for Affleck to win the Oscar for director, Argo appears to be channeling that love for him into unstoppable Best Picture momentum.

Affleck’s competition at the DGAs included Spielberg, who was up for Lincoln, Ang Lee for Life of Pi, and two other high-profile Oscar snubbees – Kathryn Bigelow for Zero Dark Thirty and Tom Hooper for Les Miserables.

The Oscar race for director includes only Spielberg and Lee from that list, along with Amour’s Michael Haneke, Silver Linings Playbook’s David O. Russell, and Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Benh Zeitlin.

Affleck’s lack of an Oscar nomination roused widespread ire throughout Hollywood last month, with many rallying around the movie over near unanimous agreement that he was unfairly denied a directing nod. Since then, Argo has gone on to win both best director and drama at the Golden Globes, best production from the Producers Guild of America, and best ensemble from the Screen Actors Guild.

The DGA win by Affleck seems to be the final confirmation of what already felt like a done deal: Argo winning Best Picture at the Feb. 24 Academy Awards ceremony.

The directors awards also recognize the makers of documentaries, TV shows, and commercials. Here is the full list of nominees, which EW will update with winners as they are announced. Two high profile feature filmmakers – Looper’s Rian Johnson and Babel’s Alejandro González Iñárritu – also won awards: Johnson for directing the episode “Fifty-One” from Breaking Bad, and Inarritu for making the tearjerker commercial Best Job, about moms helping their children on the way to the Olympics.